CHAPTER LV 



DAY AND NIGHT 



" TT seems to me," said Claire, "we have lost sight 

 JL of tlu' hearth that turns with its lighted iire- 

 brands around the lark." 



"On the contrary, we are closer to it than ever. 

 If the sun, which is thirty-eight millions of leagues 

 from us, were to go around the earth every day, do 

 you know how far it would have to go in a minute? 

 More than 100,000 leagues. But this incomprehen- 

 sible speed is nothing. The stars, as I have just told 

 you, are so many suns, comparable to ours in volume 

 and brilliancy; only they are much farther away, and 

 that is what makes them appear so small. The near- 



t is about thirty thousand times as distant as the 

 sun. Accordingly, in order to go around the earth 

 in twenty-four hours, as it appears to do, it would 

 have to move at the rate of thirty thousand times 

 1 < i' i,()00 leagues a minute. And how would it be with 

 other stars a hundred times, a thousand times, a 

 million times farther away stars which, despite 

 tin -ir distance, would all have to accomplish their 

 journey around the earth always in exactly twenty- 

 four hours. 7 And reinemher, furthermore, the 

 prodiiri' of the sun. You want it, the iriant. 



the colossus, In^idi- which the earth is only a lump of 

 clay, to circle at an impo>sillo speed in infinite space, 



257 



